By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 29th at 10:00 PM  | 

IRFA is a bill seemingly written by Pandora to stick it to copyright holders and pad their bottom line.

Other Internet radio firms are doing fine. Spotify’s growing. Apple is reportedly in negotiations with copyright holders to create their own service. Pandora is probably feeling the competitive pinch since Spotify came over from Europe, and instead of competing and innovating, wants the government to pull a Net Neutrality and shift some rents their way.

Why do we want to impose price controls? Look, if you came to me and said here’s a bill to deregulate the whole thing, I’d be all for that. But IRFA doesn’t deregulate. It tightens regulations. It picks winners and losers.

This is the same old stuff we’ve been seeing from Washington since January 20, 2009. Washington has been tilting the playing field for all those hipster-filled online firms that love Obama, and worked to re-elect Obama, and now they’re trying to wrap a free market flag around it and get us to sign on.

Didn’t we settle the price controls debate decades ago? Reject IRFA, Republicans. Thanks.

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  May 22nd at 09:16 AM  | 

If I were granted one wish about the state of today’s politics it would be for the Democrats to be saddled with their own version of John McCain.  Once again, McCain is working to score points for Democrats and undermine Cruz/Paul and Lee – the “Wacko Birds” – in their attempt to prevent a free debt ceiling increase. Back in January, Republicans and conservatives got | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 14th at 12:00 AM  | 

Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.

Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!

And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  May 6th at 08:51 PM  | 

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is upset with Ted Cruz for leading a filibuster against gun control. John McCain tweeted out the Journal’s editorial in a moment of wackiness. Bill Richardson, the scandal plagued former Governor of New Mexico, says Ted Cruz can’t be called hispanic despite being hispanic because Ted Cruz isn’t a race baiter like Richardson. And now Harry Reid calls Ted | Read More »

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  April 16th at 03:29 PM  | 

As the Gang of 8 introduces their proposal, just remember that all of your concerns are unfounded.  Unlike previous amnesties, this one will not grow the welfare state; it will not affect wages; it will not change the composition of the country.  Most importantly, it will finally ensure that we enforce the laws before people are granted amnesty.  NOT!  Although the bill keeps being leaked | Read More »

By: Ben Howe (Diary)  |  April 8th at 05:09 PM  | 

Senator Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has confirmed he will filibuster new gun control legislation, spokesman Brian McGuire confirmed for me today. While nobody knows yet what Senator Reid’s plan is for the gun bill, if he chooses to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid Bill (S. 649), Senator McConnell will oppose cloture on proceeding to that bill. The future of the | Read More »

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 29th at 03:05 PM  | 

Liberals despise a legislative process that is open and conducted under regular order.  That is why they seek to pass the most sweeping, consequential, and onerous pieces of legislation through expedited means.  Their plan to rush through an ‘amnesty now, enforcement never’ bill is the latest example of their aversion to a transparent legislative process. In an effort to prevent Senate Democrats from jamming through | Read More »

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 7th at 04:30 AM  | 

Rand Paul has done a brilliant thing filibustering the President’s appointment to the CIA. By keeping the filibuster going through prime time, Rand Paul forced ABC, CBS, and NBC — chief sources of news for low information voters — to cover the issue. Along the way, Rand Paul had help giving him time to rest his voice. Ted Cruz came down a few hours in | Read More »

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  February 27th at 03:00 PM  | 

How often do you find Democrats scoring points for the opposing team on a daily basis?  Never.  Yet that is what Lindsey Graham and John McCain, the defacto leaders of the GOP Senate, accomplish every day.  Worse, they use their bully pulpit to muddle the GOP message in the eyes of the public and convince the rest of the conference to join their merry band | Read More »

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  February 16th at 10:33 PM  | 

If a man is judged by the quality of his enemies, Ted Cruz should be a national hero.  Over the past few days, The New York Times and Politico have run stories describing Cruz’s first 6 weeks in office as combative and McCarthy-like by his enemies.  Let us use this as an opportunity to take a victory lap for helping to elect this great patriot. | Read More »

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  February 1st at 10:38 AM  | 

All things equal, when preparing to compromise on a policy issue, it is better for conservatives to first work together to craft a statement of principles, conditions, and red lines before signing onto a plan enthusiastically backed by the left.  That is why it is so disconcerting that the statement of “conservative principles” on the issue of immigration was first crafted with Chuck Schumer. When | Read More »

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  January 29th at 07:58 AM  | 

There is something Orwellian about the spectacle of a Senator who employed an illegal immigrant sex-offender unveiling an “immigration reform” proposal.  In addition to Bob Menendez’s presence at the press conference yesterday, the competition over who could speak more Spanish, along with McCain’s passionate assertion that this proposal is virtually the same as the Kennedy plan, made this spectacle a full-court circus.  It was even | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 16th at 12:00 AM  | 

I guess legislatively it’ll be slow going the rest of this year, thanks to the elections. So Tech at Night just may be shorter for a while to come. That’s good for my sleep schedule, I believe. Though the aftermath continues of Harry Reid’s failure to ram through the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act, as John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and other Republicans criticized Harry Reid for | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 28th at 12:30 AM  | 

Senate Republicans have decided to take Harry Reid at his word that Republicans will have the opportunity to amend the Lieberman-Collins cybersecurity bill. So, many Republicans voted for advancing the bill, which passed 84-11. And oh boy it needs amending. Who are you going to believe? For it is Barack Obama. Against have been Kay Bailey Hutchison, John McCain, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Heritage, and | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 26th at 02:15 AM  | 

Right now the top issues are both getting lots of attention in the Senate. One is the cybersecurity bill. It’s been difficult for me to find out much about what’s going on with it, and it turns out there’s a reason. Sources familiar with the situation indicate to me that Harry Reid has been negotiating with Republicans in bad faith. Even Republicans who love to | Read More »